Dan's Blog

Jim Walls

My post is a little off the target of where Dan was heading, but,,,,,,,,,, If memory serves, I read a post on the wall a while ago, about an address that was given to a group of 1st year students at a prestigious medical school,,,,it went something like this,,,,50% of what you will learn here will be proved wrong,,,,,,,unfortunately we do not know which 50%,,,,,,
Much of what we know and learn is based on information available at the time,,,,,,,,,(this was not the case in Dan's new blog with those who knew they were wrong but would not take the time to fix it)
Things evolve, technology changes, experience, trial & error lead us to new solutions.
My wife & I are going through a personal experience,as I write, where it could not be more evident. What worked before in this situation, did not work, we need to try this new idea which may work for you, but then the question, why did it work? How do we make sure it will work the next time?
We may find that the reason something worked was totally different then the reason we thought it worked.
Our industry is full of this same process.
For instance, the history of building bridges. Most if not all engineers know how to build a bridge that would not fail. But there was and is constant pressure to build with lighter material and @ less expense. Engineers learn from failures, not from successes.
We need to be a little more self reliant,( I hope I can express this correctly), it is easy to take what a teacher tells you is gospel and use it religiously. It takes effort to question what they say, to study the subject & use of our own experiences ( which account for more then we give it credit for)to either agree or challenge what they have taught.
I would hope that no teacher purposely gives incorrect information, I would like to think they believe in what they are saying,( not always the case in Dan's article) but as Dan mentioned they failed to learn the subject matter inside and out,,,,,they failed to invest the time. How many times have you heard Dan say he spends 8 hours preparing for 1 hour of teaching.
There have been several times where I have attended CEU classes one day and learned a certain item only to find out 2 days later it was misinterpreted by the instructor.
This is not a reason to give up on education, this is education!

TGO_54

Hi Dan,

Your blog makes a good point about correcting mistakes, it also points out that more often than not it doesn't happen. Then (as you said) the lobster pots keep on killing.

What I would like to know is how can you avoid this? The books and pamphlets are being given out by people who believe they contain valid information and will be helpful.

The people who are reading them are doing so because they want to learn to do things the right way and believe they are doing so.

Can you imagine the frustration when you follow a "sanctioned" procedure or method and then find out its wrong? I know of more than one tech who simply gave up and will no longer try to educate themselves - whats the point, you can't trust anything you read anyway.

I know the information you have in your books is accurate, I consider them to be the final word on the subjects you address. I also know that I can come here with any questions I have about what you have written and you will answer me until the concept has penatrated my thick teutonic skull. There are a handfull of other authors who will do the same - George Lanthier, Timmie McElwain, and Eugene Silberstein come to mind. But what about the rest? How can you be sure the information you are getting is correct? Education is very important, it is also expensive and time consuming. How can you be sure that you are not wasting time and effort learning the wrong way?


I am curious to see what other will have to say about this and hope that someone will have a solutuion to the problem.

Thanks for all you do

Tom

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hr

Consider the source

often times marketing and sales shade the laws of thermodynamics Question authority when you see claims like free cooling! Or free energy of any sort, for that matter.

hot rod

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Constantin

Good points...

Engineering in its early days was less about knowing how things work than from learning from mistakes. Look at the Pyramids in Egypt that collapsed because they were built too steep, for example.

On the other hand, modern engineering can be very, very accurate, if the right effort is put into understanding all the issues first. Trouble is, most people are too lazy to delve into that kind of detail, build in safety factors to cover their butts and hope for the best.

And we don't have to look far in the HVAC industry, where even the celebrated Manual-J (as of the 7th edition) allegedly has a 25% safety factor built in. Just like the contractors of lore who keep upsizing furnaces, boilers, etc. to prevent callbacks, etc. even ACCA builds in a buffer!

So, even though my AC system will be undersized by something like 5% on a design day, I presume that between screening by plants and other mitigating factors that I'll be OK. Time will tell.